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Ten of Twenty-One A new year...12 months, 365 days, 8.760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds. A time to consider directions, goals, and reflect on what actions to take. I must make some plans to live a normal life, but I also must live emotionally within a twenty-four-hour-frame. I can decide, "Today I will do this...Today I will do that." Each day I can measure my life by trying to do a little better, by deciding to make a effort to change. Somehow during the passage of tim...

h i Cja^ 4993 W o r d Essay At the age of sixteen I was incarcerated for First Degree Murder and later sentenced to 77-years in prison. There seemed to be httle consideration of the affects it would have on a teenager to be housed with adults. Fortunately for me I was a fighter. There is a strange unwritten rule in prison that if somebody is willing to stick up for himself from day one then other prisoners will be willing to help him. If you don't stand up for yourself then you are left ...

An Ordeal I'm a prisoner serving consecutive life terms here in Washington State. I'm also a Christian. In the late 1980's another inmate, who was serving Life without the Possibility of Parole, told me about two rape/murders that he'd committed that he'd never been caught for. This inmates name was Michael. I asked him if anyone had been charged or convicted for the crimes. He told me not that he knew of. I thought about what Michael had shared with me. He professed ...

2.26.2014 The American Prison Writing Project 198 College Hill Road Clinton, NY Dear APWA, Hello, I am writing in response to your ad in the Prison Legal News. I want to actively participate in the project. Right now, I am currently incarcerated in the Washington State Department of Corrections. I am here on a First Degree Robbery charge. I robbed a bank in Elma, WA, (with a note), went to a jury trial and received 14 and a half years for my bad judgement. I hate it when that happens...Such i...

NO TITLE May 31, 2016 Here is my submission I am writing this in the hopes that all the efforts of staff and inmates, who have long provided factual insights, who've long been ignored and dismissed, will finally be heard. For the purpose of this letter, "DOC" is a generic reference to individual prison administrations and centralized ("headquarters") prison overseers, including those under both public and private management. I am 23 and a half years into a life senten...

NO TITLE I am currently incarcerated in a Washington State Correctional Institution serving a 129 month sentence of which I have just completed 5 years. I have spent 8 of my last 11 years in an incarcerated situation. Looking back over my life, it is hard to believe I have come to this point. Yet in retrospect, I can clearly see where my alcoholism and drug addiction led me to make some poor choices in my life, and I certainly didn't heed the warning signs that are so clear to me now. Pr...

Essay Submission for: Voices Through the Wall: Prisoners Write About Prisons Submitted by: Robin A. Rittermann - 884465 Airway Heights Correction Center P.O. Box 2049 M-Unit Airway Heights, WA. 99001 I would like to first express my gratitude to everyone who has made it possible for we as prisoners to have this unique opportunity. There are many men in prison who are smarter than I and have had much more diverse and profound experiences in prison than I have. I am still fairly new to prison. ...

James Barstad [#759730] MONROE CORRECTIONAL COMPLEX P.O BOX 111; WSRU-B123 Monroe, Washington [98272] In 1974, when I was nine years old, I was molested at Camp Cowles, BSA, a Boy Scout camp at Diamond Lake, Washington. The offenders were members of the Spokane Sheriffs Department. It came to light that members of the Sheriffs and the clergy operating the Momingstar Boy's Ranch had been victimizing boys and young adults for many decades. The scandal included Jim West, who eventually rose...

by Steve Bartholomew Institutional Enlightenment "You're institutionalized," she said. Silence crackled along the phone wires while I decided precisely where on the scale of mistakenness she was and how I might say as much without sounding defensive. Ue'd fallen off, she and I, a decade ago. Prison will do that. Ue'd recently begun writing again, but you can't proofread a phone call, and the immediacy of conversation thrummed my nervous system like a guitar strin...

M Y .n JSTTCF FXPKRTENCR, S O FAR... Coming to prison actually saved my life. Due to sexual abuse as a child, I started to drinl<: and abuse drugs very early in my life, at age nine. I don't remember any real childhood in which drugs and alcohols did not play a part. The road of my life was inevitably leading to one of two conclusions. One was prison, the other one death. It is quite possible that I actually did die in the five-car collision that was the beginning of my present ordeal...

James Barstad ONE "Life sucksr That was the one thought going through my head, when I realized that I was in a mental institution. I had bounced off of a couple cars, cut myself a couple times, and my girlfriend's dad thought I was suicidal. Of course, I wasn't. I was just upset, and expressing myself in the only way I knew how. I wasn't crazy\ Regardless, I was tricked into going to the hospital with him. Once there, I was locked in a room. Then, since they didn't ha...

One Small Voice Through the Wall by Martin G. Gann wA In this writing I hope to convey my experiences as they relate to two things. The first is dealing with a disability and trying to survive or exist in the Washington prison system where empathy or compassion does not exist. The second experience being the most important thing to me while I serve my time and that is my family. I preface this writing with a short description or back ground of myself for a better understanding of who I am, wh...

4.26.2014 The Aiiiierican Prison V/riting Project 198 College Hill Koad Clinton,NY 13323-1218 Re: The Politics of Monopolies within WA DOC Dear APV/A, Hello again. 1 am writing about the conditions that are so very prevalent within this organization that is the Washington Department of ^Corruption^. They practice «very monopoly action that they feel that they can get away with or justify. For example, they are in with a subsidiary that they are promoting and shoving down our throats is called...

^'SUCCESS R E Q U I R E S By Jacob J. GamEt E F F O R r What is success? Jo some, it's Hollywood lights, to others, a humble and moral life, and others, financial security. Regardless of what people perceive success to be, there is one thing that successful people know about it—it requires effort. You can't wish success into existence. Neither can you wave a magic wand and expect piles of cash to appear at your feet. If it were up to me, I'd characterize 'success&apos...

James Barstad THREE Elephants are known for their long-term memory. When they are little baby elephants, what are they, cubs, kits, pups, oh yeah, calves, they are chained to a wooden post driven into the ground. They push, pull, and fight. Eventually they learn that they are not strong enough to pull out the post. When they grow to adulthood, they remember that they could not pull the post loose. Even though they are now strong enough to gain their freedom, they fail to test the post, becaus...

James Barstad THREE Although I never knew her name, I recall the face of the Romper Room lady. I distinctly remember her calling my name as she gazed through her magic looking glass. She said, "I see Jamie," along with an assortment of names of other children watching the show. While I watched her, she was watching me! Is she still watching? Is she employed by the NSA, scanning my thoughts? I don't have a cell phone, but I don't know that I have already been labeled as a t...

mo Today, you are faceless/ but still I icnov you! you have inhabited many forms# all with different monikers* but you are still the same V M O , We have niet on this battlefield many time in the p a s t . I am sure that we will meet again. I Icnow you/ your name is Abuse of Authority. I You seek positions where you can have some sense of control over others. It eases your pain of having no control over yourself. We find you in the church,/ the government/ in law enforcement, and in every pla...